5 nuke carriers docked at the same time (pic)

[marvdmartian]

USS Enterprise was decommissioned 1 Dec 2012

Close. She was deactivated from the active fleet. Due to the fact that they have to have some nuke plant operators on board until she's fully de-fueled, they couldn't decom her until that was completed, since you can't legally have active duty sailors on board after the decom......or something like that. I was at the deactivation ceremony (as the Big E was my ship, from 1982 to 1987), and SecNav explained it all during his speech.

She will be decommed either in Norfolk, after the de-fueling, or once she reaches Washington state for the cutting up.

 

[JTsyo]

Russia has never had a particularly large navy, not enough relevant warm water ports and such. And the Cold War didn't exactly do their military any wonders.



facts are facts, not many people are aware of the extent of US naval dominance

the point of having so many carriers isn't necessarily because the US is disconnected from other world powers, but because the coasts are so very far apart, and having multiple carriers provides the ability to send them out in rotations with only a few deployed at any given time, and the rest in training/maintenance

Same thing in WW2, some think had we lost Midway, we might have lost the war or at least been forced to pursue peace. But the truth is we could have lost all our carriers and still build back up to overwhelm the Japanese.

This case is still true today. While much of our commercial manufacturing might have been offshored, our defense manufacturing is still healthy. With our alliance with Japan, I don't see what China would gain by knocking out our carriers. We could still use the airfields in Japan.

 

[Linflas]

Russia has never had a particularly large navy, not enough relevant warm water ports and such. And the Cold War didn't exactly do their military any wonders.



facts are facts, not many people are aware of the extent of US naval dominance

the point of having so many carriers isn't necessarily because the US is disconnected from other world powers, but because the coasts are so very far apart, and having multiple carriers provides the ability to send them out in rotations with only a few deployed at any given time, and the rest in training/maintenance

I don't know how it works in 2014 but during the cold war days just to cover the Med we had 2 carrier task forces active continuously in the Med, one in the eastern Med operating out of Naples and another covering the western Med operating out of Barcelona. That required an additional 2 task forces in Norfolk, 1 that was standing down after a 6 month tour and 1 that was working up to deploy to the Med.

 

[pauldun170]

all 5 could be destroyed and we'd still have more carriers than the rest of the world combined

I see a bunch of US carriers. Marines little guys and Navy's big guys.
I see Frances big guy. Teething issues and all, but still nice.
I see Russia's cruiser\carrier love child.

I also see
1 old French carrier that Brazil found in the trash and that barely works.
I see one old rusty Russian carrier that the Chinese are trying figure out how to use properly (This is really just a penis stretcher for some Chinese military. They are using this for training only). It was headed to the scrap heap and the Chinese bought it. Probably paid 5 bucks for it.
I see another a Russian heavy cruiser\carrier that the Indians are using. Mostly so they complain about how many stupid things they can find in their Russain ships and planes.
I see 60 year old relic from the UK also in the hands of the Indians.
They are supposed to be building a new carrier, something that holds more than shoddy Russian workmanship and back-ordered parts.
I see Spain and Italy's little carriers as well. Why they have carriers? So the US can pat them on the head and say "oh how cute".
Thailand's carrier? Helicopter carrier more like it. They should just paint the thing white and slap a big red cross on it.

 

[Phoenix86]

Interesting that there seems to be 2 basic designs, and a couple outliers.